15 DAYS WITHOUT A HEAD Review

Title: 15 DAYS WITHOUT A HEAD

Author: Dave Cousins

Release date: 5^th January 2012

Publisher: Oxford University Press

How far would you go to keep your family together?

Meet LAURENCE, fifteen years old and seven feet tall. Very soon, he’ll dress up as his mum and impersonate a dead man on the radio.

Meet JAY, his six year old brother. He looks like an angel but thinks he’s a dog. He’ll sink his teeth into anyone who gets in the way.

Today is Tuesday – and the next fifteen days will change the boys’ lives forever…

Not suitable for younger readers because Jay Roach says so (and he bites).

Laurence looks after his little brother Jay… and up until a couple of days ago, also had the responsibility of looking after his mum. Getting her up to get to work on time is just one of his problems and it can be difficult when she is suffering from a hangover. Laurence has a plan to change things… it might involve spending his evenings in a phone box spurting out general knowledge on the radio (sometimes accompanied by a growling Jay) but surely this will bring his family back together and give them a happily ever after? If only Laurence knew where his mum was……

As sad as it is funny, this book (despite only lasting 15 days) offers a rollercoaster ride. The reality of it is, some children live like Laurence and his brother (although probably without pretending to be their mum or lying on the radio) but as well as making me laugh and cry, this book made me think and be so grateful. So many children aren’t as lucky as I was and don’t have family around them to look after them and make them feel safe. Laurence really cares for his brother and for me that was what drove the story forward. Of course Laurence wants his mum back but he also wants Jay to have a proper family and he truly believes that winning a holiday will solve his mum’s problems.

The book wouldn’t be nearly half as effective if the characters weren’t so believable and one of my favourite ones is Nosy Nelly. We all know someone like her, the local gossip who knows everybody’s business and asks those awkward questions when she already knows the answer! But in some parts of this book, you just wish that there was someone who did know what was going on and could come to the boys’ rescue. 

Keith Gray describes the book as ‘A tough and turbulent tale of growing up… There’s heart and soul on every page’ and I have to agree. For anyone who has never experienced this dark world where children are left to fend for themselves, the book will offer an insight into the stark reality that many children have to face on a daily basis.

However, I don’t want this to put you off if you are after a bit of humour. This is not ‘A child called It’ and will disappoint if you are after a childhood abuse memoir. It is full of humour, love and best of all imagination (as well as being fictional!).

I really appreciated the world that this book had to offer and I think many others will too. There is an interview with the author at the end of the tale which grounds the story as fiction as well as contact details for Childline and NSPCC which offers support to readers who face a life like this in reality.

4.5/5 This book offers so much and I don’t feel that this short review has done it justice.

For support relating to some of the issues raised in the book contact:-

Childline 

www.childline.org.uk  

Freephone 0800 1111

NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) 

www.nspcc.org.uk  

0808 800 500

NACOA ( National Association for Children of Alcoholics) 

www.nacoa.org.uk 

Freephone 0800 358 3456

The Who Cares? Trust

 www.thewhocarestrust.org.uk 

0207 251 3117

Undead Review

Title: Undead

 Author: Kirsty McKay

Release date: 1st September 2011

Publisher: Chicken House

SCHOOL TRIPS. PACK A LUNCH.

AND PICK A WEAPON.

When their ski-coach pulls in at a café, everyone gets off except for new girl Bobby and bad boy Smitty.

They’re hardly best buds, but that soon changes when, through the falling snow, they see the others coming back.

Something has happened. Something bad.

TIME TO GET A LIFE….

When Bobby, English/all American girl, goes on the ski-trip from hell with her class mates, little does she know that the trip back will be far worse than the trip itself. Finding that most of the class and all of the teachers have turned into brain munching zombies becomes just one of their concerns as Bobby teams up with fellow survivors, fighting their way out of a very snowy Scotland with no transport, communication and a limited food supply. The group come up with a lot of ideas as to what caused the zombie breakout, Pete suggests that they are part of a scientific experiment, but no one would leave a bunch of school kids out there at the mercy of zombies, would they?

This book was one of the very few novels which manages to combine humour, horror, romance and family successfully. Of course what appealed to me was the title and the promise of zombie fighting fun but I am really pleased to say, I got much more than that. This novel is along the lines of Resident Evil (amongst many, many others) where there is some sort of hidden experimentation going on that goes badly wrong and the inevitable attempted cover-up.

Undead manages to capture the hierarchical nature of high school life while the students battle for their lives and that’s part of what makes this book really funny. Bobby, social outcast from America, Alice, the school b***h, Smitty, the bad boy and Pete the geek have to work together to save their lives and this offers some brilliant humour with a touch of unexpected romance on the cards. Having never even wanted to sit next to each other in class, the students have to trust one another in order to survive but it us hard for them to break the habit of a lifetime and the back biting continues throughout, despite life threatening danger. Kirsty McKay’s characterisation in this sense is great. We all know someone ‘stereotypically’ like these characters and that’s what made the book so fun.

The introduction of Scottish natives with their colloquialisms, as well as vivid descriptions, sets the book well and truly in the UK. For me, this really set the scene and introduced the remoteness and isolation that the characters feel (if you’ve ever been to Scotland, you’ll know what I mean). While Scotland’s highlands and luscious green fields are great during the day (If you haven’t been to Scotland, you should go, it is truly beautiful), the author reminds us that this can be terrifying during a snowstorm in the dark being chased by zombie hordes.

While much of the book has the characters skulking hiding from zombies and Carrot Man (who may or may not have caused all this) usually in the coach or a service station or running for their lives from the zombies… or Carrot Man, the pace of the novel kept me engaged and turning every page. However, the underlying conspiracy theory intrigued me and kept me hooked until the end where (spoiler alert?) I wasn’t disappointed.  

Overall, a really good, edge of the seat read with elements for everybody. I would say that there isn’t enough romance/family/humour to entertain readers who don’t like horror (although these things are an added bonus) and honestly, if you pick up a book called Undead and aren’t pleased by a bit of gore, teenagers wielding weapons, a few infected teachers and awesome action-packed driving (of both coaches and quad bikes) then prepare to be thoroughly disappointed as this book provides these and so much more!

4.5/5 A brilliant addition to YA horror.

Additional note: When reading this book, I didn't realise that it had been published in 2011. A copy of the playaway (an mp3 audiobook)  recently came in at my local library and I was really interested in this title, so I ordered the physical book. When blogging, I realised that the book was published in 2011 and so the sequel will actually already be released which means I can order it now.... right now!

https://capitadiscovery.co.uk/lancashire/items/1423445?query=kirsty+mckay&resultsUri=items%3Fquery%3Dkirsty%2Bmckay

I <3 libraries!!!!!!

Distant Waves Review

Title: Distant Waves

Author: Suzanne Weyn

Release Date: 1^st March 2010

Publisher: Scholastic

When her eldest sister is drawn into the exciting whirlwind of high society, Jane seizes her chance to escape her small town existence – but leaves her three younger sisters behind.

When they are brought back together by the tides of fate, the five girls find themselves on board the most amazing ship of their time. A ship they have been warned about. A ship called Titanic...

Jane’s mum is a spirit medium which is how Jane and her sisters end up living in Spirit Vale. But a chance meeting with Nikola Tesla in her childhood means that Jane craves adventure and, when given the opportunity, she leaves her family behind to interview Tesla in the big city. One thing leads to another and completely by chance, Jane and her sisters find themselves on an adventure that will take them to dock of the most impressive ship the world has ever seen...Titanic.

I felt a bit like this was one of those books where the blurb reveals far too much about the ending of the book and is a bit misleading. The first half of the book (which was very well written and really interesting) doesn't really have anything to do with the Titanic. I understand that the beginning of the book sets up the character relationships for the end of the book ( I have been reading long enough to know that this is how a good book works!) but I just felt like I was waiting for the book to get going with what the blurb had promised. For me, the Titanic element was the ‘hook’ and actually, after reading the book, I feel like that the story has so much more to offer that it didn't need the Titanic to be such a big advertisement.

Having said that, when the Titanic does make an appearance at the end of the book, it was definitely worth waiting for. Suzanne Weyn really captures the despair and panic felt by the passengers and the horror of what happened and be warned, not all the characters make it out safely. It is such a dramatic event in the book and is quite emotional.

The author’s choice to combine real life characters and events with fictional ones is really well done and very interesting. Her Author’s Note, ‘What’s real in Distant Waves?’ provided the much needed distinctions between her story and the real one and, for me, this made the story even more fascinating. The tale is very detailed and in some places I found myself having to re-read passages so that I knew which character was doing what at that time – there is just so much going on!

Overall, if you are interested in history or the supernatural than I would suggest this is a good read for you. The book wasn’t what I expected and this did affect my enjoyment of it but there are elements of the story which are really good, the characters and plot are detailed and the Author’s Note was fantastic.

3.5/5 Don’t read the blurb before you read the book! 

HALF BAD review

Title: Half Bad

Author: Sally Green

Release Date: 3^rd March 2014

Publisher: Penguin

you can’t read, can’t write,

but you heal fast, even

for a witch

you get sick if you stay 

indoors after dark

you hate White Witches

but love Annaliese,

who is one

you’ve been kept in a

cage since you were

fourteen

all you’ve got

to do is escape and

find Mercury, the Black

Witch who eats boys

and do that before your

seventeenth birthday

                                                                      easy

Nathan’s mum was a white witch healer and his dad is the most dangerous living black witch. Despite growing up under the protection of his gran and behaving himself (well... almost), the witch council won't leave him alone, both concerned about his mixed heritage and convinced that Nathan holds the key to his father’s demise.  Defeating the most dangerous black witch is high on the council’s priorities but this comes at the expense of Nathan’s freedom. Will Nathan reach his seventeenth birthday safely and if he does, will he get his three gifts and complete the blood ritual to become a fully fledged witch?

I cannot believe how much I enjoyed this book. It was completely un-put-down-able and had me suffering from severe sleep deprivation in order to finish it (I am very bitter about this!) Nathan’s character is so well constructed and I could empathise with him throughout. The suffering he endures is horrific but I didn't find the novel uncomfortable to read, in fact, it was a really easy read.

Sally Green uses a non linear narrative; the book being split into six parts. This technique is really effective - setting the scene and showing the situation Nathan is in but only revealing what has happened bit by bit. The reader then gets to experience what Nathan did first hand while knowing that there isn’t a happy outcome. While this can seem a bit strange, I was so absorbed in what was going on in the story at that point that I forget that these are events from Nathan’s past. The entire novel (despite the non-linear narrative) is written in present first person which makes it even easier to slip into the drama at that point and empathise with Nathan. There are exceptions to this such as Part three’s ‘The choker’ which is written in second person but this means it is both inclusive (allowing the reader to feel that this is happening to them) but also allows Nathan to distance himself from the humiliation he is enduring at that time.

The chapters are short and are bluntly titled and for me this added to the character of the book and is indicative of Nathan’s literacy skills. The part titles and chapter titles also reveal drips of information to the reader about what is about to happen, just as the non-linear narrative does. Sally Green uses these effectively, revealing just enough for the reader to be hooked (I was throughout) but also ‘catching us out’ by occasionally offering information about Nathan’s story that was unexpected.

I cannot stress how much I enjoyed this novel. The story is engaging and brilliant. Nathan’s character is so interesting and believable and Sally Green really knows how to pull in her reader and keep them! Also, just a brief note to say I loved the cover art which was very clever and sophisticated.

5/5 Counting the days until the release of the sequel, Half Wild!

The BOY who SWAM WITH PIRANHAS review

Title: The Boy who Swam with Piranhas

Author: David Almond

Release Date: 5^th September 2013

Publisher: Walker

‘Fish fish fish fish!

FISH FISH FISH FISH!

Fish in buckets and fish in bins!’

Stan’s Uncle Ernie has developed an extra ordinary fascination with canning fish, and life at 69 Fish Quay Lane has turned barmy!

Then barmy becomes barbaric and Stan runs away with the fair, where he finds himself a new kind of family: Dostoyevsky and Nitasha from the hook-a-duck, the mysterious Gypsy Rose... and the legendary Pancho Pirelli, the man who swims with Piranhas.

Finally, Stan has a chance to shine; to be the person he was meant to be. But does he have the courage to dive into the churning, swirling waters of the piranha tank?

Stan finds his life monotonous working for the family fish business and when his Uncle Ernie does something (almost) unforgiveable, Stan decides to run away with the fair. Fitting into a new kind of family, Stan realises his destiny

The boy who swam with piranhas is a touching book that is both funny and sad at the same time. The speech is written in David Almond's phonetic style for some of the characters and this is really the only thing that linked it to The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean, well, that and the strange larger than life characters which are beautifully constructed. See (http://lilypadlibraryuk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-true-tale-of-monster-billy-dean.html) for my review of The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean.

To say that I disliked the abstract style of The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean, I loved the structure of this tale (although that probably says more about me as a reader than David Almond's writing!). For me, the story flowed and it was very clear cut which bits the reader was meant to enjoy, the story wasn't predictable, just nicely comfortable. The settings were detailed and elaborate and added depth to the story as the characters travel cross country to be together again.

The characters of Uncle Ernie and Nitasha were the most complex because they weren't necessarily good or bad characters, they offered something much more complex. All the other characters are very clearly labelled as 'good' or 'bad' and offer security, we are meant to like Annie and Dostoyevsky and dislike Clarence P Clapp and his ‘lads’ whereas Ernie and Nitasha do some bad things but are so well loved by the other characters that they can be forgiven.

There was a little interlude where the storyteller threatens to abandon the track of the current story (following Stan) and drift off to another location where Annie and Ernie are. This almost reminded me of Lemony Snicket who likes to go off on a tangent and creates frustration for the reader who really just wants to know what will happen next!

Overall a nicely enjoyable read. It was really easy to get into and offered lovely creative characters that were lively enough to leap off the page. I would recommend this to someone who wants to read something a little bit quirky (but not as abstract as The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean) and I would be shocked if you didn't find at least 75% of it highly enjoyable. The illustrations are also really well done and add to the character of the novel.

4.5/5 An unusual book with a carnival feel 

Apologies from Mrs Brown

Good morning blog followers!

I wish to offer my sincerest apologies for being such a bad blogger in 2014. However... I would like to think that I have a very good excuse.... I am now a married woman!!!!!!

I have spent quite a while doing wedding-y things and that has meant that the blog has been neglected.

This does not mean that I haven't been reading... quite the opposite. On our honeymoon, my husband (!) and I bought about 50 books (not an exaggeration) and as the weather was a bit miserable, spent a lot of time in the hotels reading!

I have therefore a lot of books to blog about and so you might be bombarded over the next week as I try to catch up with my reviews!

To anyone who might be interested, we had a lovely day and I am now happily married to Mr Brown. The weather stayed lovely while we were at the church and then proceeded to chuck it down when we moved on to Cafe Cargo but it was wonderful and we got some stunning photos!

So watch this space for some epic reviews!

Much love

Georgia Brown  

Missing Ellen Author Q and A

To celebrate the festive season I've brought you a very special gift... Lilypad Library's FIRST EVER author Q and A!

 

Welcome to Natasha Mac a'Bhaird, author of the fantastic 'Missing Ellen' which was released in October (check out my review posted earlier). Natasha's novel about the difficulties of friendship is beautifully written and I am ridiculously excited about interviewing her!

So here it is YA fans, my Christmas present to you!

 

 

Hi Natasha, thanks so much for taking time out to do this Q and A, it is actually a first for the Lilypad Library! 

Maggie and Ellen are such different characters, do you see yourself more like Maggie's character or Ellen's character?

I think Ellen is the person I would have liked to be as a teenager, but Maggie is more like who I really was – and still am! I was definitely the more law-abiding type who thought deeply about things, whereas I would have loved to be more carefree and more exciting like Ellen. But as I’ve got older I’ve realised it’s more than OK to be a Maggie! There are room for all sorts and I like how opposites like Maggie and Ellen often seem to attract – their personalities seem to balance each other well.

 Did this make it easier/more difficult to write Maggie's letters?

I found Maggie’s letters easier to write than the flashbacks but I’m not sure it was because I identified more with her. Ellen was just as real in my mind. There is a lot of emotion in the letters, I could hear Maggie’s voice in my head and they just came pouring out. The narrative was more difficult and took a lot more thought and time!

 
For me the ending really came as a shock as what happens to Ellen isn't revealed until the very end. Did you know what was going to happen to Ellen before you started writing or did Maggie's story come first?

I did know what was going to happen. The ending came first in a way – it was just a matter of figuring out how I was going to get there!

 

Despite Ellen's behaviour, did you want readers to sympathise with her throughout the novel?
Ellen can be a bit thoughtless and has no regard for rules but that certainly doesn’t make her a bad person. I think we see her softer side in how kind she is to her brother Robert, putting her own life on hold to mind him after school when her mother’s not up to it.

Apart from Ellen and Maggie, who was the most interesting character to create and why?

Liam was interesting and more of a challenge for me because I’ve never been a teenage boy! We don’t get to see as much of what’s going on in his head as we do with the two girls, but I hope he comes across the way he is in my head – a nice, kind, ordinary boy next door! Pete and Spider were interesting in a very different way as it’s always quite enjoyable to create bad guys.

Are any of the characters based on real people?

Not intentionally, but possibly one of the teachers has something in common with one of mine. I’d better not say any more!

 

Thank you so much to Natasha and O'Brien Press for allowing me to do this Q and A. I would definitely recommend reading 'Missing Ellen', it is brilliant! (Any of those of you who get book/amazon vouchers etc for Christmas, this is a good one!!!!) 

 

So that's it from me before Christmas day arrives!

 

Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year !

 

Much love,

 

Georgia x